


raw

by stubbleglitter (maggie)



Category: NSYNC
Genre: Break Up, Food, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-12-13
Updated: 2001-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:16:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/stubbleglitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the thing about playing musical chairs is that the music always has to stop at some point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	raw

There wasn't much to say, really.

Chris knew it, but he couldn't help but feel that one of them should have said **something**. Anything. Made a noise, even, to break the flat stale silence. But another part of him, the part that he'd honed into cynical, bitter perfection, told him that this was the only possible way for it to end. Why in the world should he expect anything special, after all this time?

"Um," JC said, still sitting on the perfectly made hotel bed. His back was slightly curved and Chris could see the bones, see the knobby vertebrae bumping against the thin soft fabric of JC's shirt. He was reminded suddenly of going to the Baltimore Aquarium, once, and seeing an enormous whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling, all its bones just...suspended there, for anybody to see. JC was nothing like a whale. Or maybe he was exactly like a whale. It was getting hard to remember, anymore.

"Shut up," Chris told him. JC swallowed, nodded. His back curved a bit more before he stood and the bones disappeared.

...

Things went on as usual, the way things tended to do. The others didn't talk about it. JC seemed fine, if a little sniffly now and again. Chris acted as though nothing had happened but he wasn't stupid enough to lie to himself. He was only pretending that nothing had happened because he wanted to see if it would upset JC. He should have known better.

They came across each other on a cold morning in the tiny kitchen, after one of those long nights where they'd all fallen asleep on the three-man bus. Chris had come awake suddenly and wanted grapefruit juice. He hadn't counted on JC already being up, sitting at the kitchen table, scribbling away in one of his endless notebooks.

"Hi," Chris said. Instinct to greet somebody. He was running on fucking automatic, it was two-thirty in the morning and JC was looking at him with faraway pale eyes.

"Oh, Chris...hi." JC blinked, slowly, as though his eyelashes were coated in glycerin or corn syrup or honey. His voice was breathy and just as slow. "Hhhhhhhii."

Chris grabbed the plastic bottle of juice and left. He stood in the hallway, swaying against the wall, and drank the entire bottle in deep, almost painful gulps. The grapefruit was tart and it burned the whole way down.

...

When Justin decided to bring it up, Chris wasn't prepared for it. In fact, he was fairly certain that _nobody_ would have expected a painful break-up to be broached in so abrupt and inappropriate a manner. But then again, this was Justin, so maybe he _should_ have expected it.

"So, dude," Justin garbled, coming out of the bathroom brushing his teeth and sitting on one of the stiff hotel chairs, "why'd you and C split?"

The nailclipper that Chris was carefully wielding on his left big toe slipped, jabbing into the tender flesh surrounding the nail. "Dammit!" Chris yowled, gripping his toe and rocking on the comforter. He compulsively constricted his already curled-up body into an even tighter ball, leaving enough room to glare at Justin. "None of your fucking business, Timberlake."

Justin squeezed one eye narrow and swallowed his toothpaste. Chris couldn't help but grimace, but Justin seemed oblivious. "It is **too**," he said loudly, thumbing the corners of his mouth clean. "It's **all** our business. It's just Joey and Lance are too chickenshit to ask."

"Joey and Lance have some fucking manners," Chris said, but it was half-hearted. He was tired. All he wanted, suddenly, was for Justin to go away so he could finish clipping his toenails and hope that such an unromantic chore would make him forget what romance was like.

"I have manners," Justin said, hurt. He got up, abandoning his toothbrush, and sat on the bed. Chris felt himself slide, a little, towards Justin.

"I know." Rubbing his cheek, Chris redirected his eyes, stared at the carpet. A nasty beige sort of color. It had felt rough on his feet after he showered and he was dreading walking on it again.

"Uh-huh," Justin murmured, and he slipped his cold, mint-smelling fingers around Chris' face, over his one hand, still rubbing, and kissed him.

...

The next morning it was raining. They all shared a limo and Justin kept smiling to himself, even though one side of his chin was rubbed wounded red and slightly scabbing over.

Chris didn't look at anybody. He didn't understand why Justin hadn't hated the carpet too.

...

Joey was worried, and Chris expected that.

Lance was cold and pissed, and Chris expected that.

JC was unruffled, and Chris expected that.

Sometimes knowing each other inside and out could really take the fucking fun out of something.

...

He and Justin kept it up for the entire rest of the tour, fucking when they just came offstage and the adrenalin was still driving them, or when they woke up in the morning and the only sound was the whirring of the bus wheels, or in interchangeable hotel rooms with variations of the same ugly scrapy carpet. Chris barely knew what to think of it, and he found that he liked it that way. There had been too much thinking with JC, endlessly going over every detail of their relationship, obsessing over the most trivial matters. With Justin there was only a hot mouth pressed against his, a mirrored heat in the grinding hips, a sleepy and casual sort of companionship afterwards.

Chris couldn't remember when he'd had so much sex. And then one night, when he had Justin braced over the bathroom counter so he could watch in the mirror when that pretty mouth peeled open over perfect teeth, Justin pressed his head back against Chris and moaned, "I love you, man."

All Chris could smell was toothpaste. He barely even felt it when he came.

...

Nothing changed between them. Well, maybe Justin was a little more clingy, especially early in the morning or just after he'd been fucked. And maybe Chris caught Justin staring at him a little more often, holding almost perfectly still while he did it. And maybe JC showed up with red-rimmed eyes more than he had in the past, but that could have just been Chris' imagination.

...

"No," Chris said, shaking his head and feeling green spots go off behind his eyes. "No no no no **no**."

JC looked down, wiggling the slightly pointy toes of his shoes. "Okay," he said, his voice barely audible.

"You know why, right?" Chris leaned forward, nearly falling against JC. "I mean, you _understand_ why?"

"No," JC said. He brought his gaze up, and Chris noticed with a shock that JC's eyes were a clear, starry glisten straight across. He wanted to lick JC's eyes and see if they tasted like saltwater and light.

"No," JC said again, more strongly this time. "I don't understand one bit. Chris."

It was all Chris could do to turn away; he nearly gasped with the effort of it. "I didn't think you would," he said, and his voice was so sad, even to himself, that it seemed only natural when JC started to cry.

...

They would eat together, sometimes, and after a while Chris noticed that Justin ate a lot of things half-cooked, if even. He ate designer wood-oven pizza with shrimp still translucent on it; he ate buttery-soft morsels of pink salmon and pale tuna at Japanese restaurants; he ate thick sandwiches crammed full of rare roast beef, blood staining the bread a delicately bruised color.

He thought maybe that Justin was in an awful hurry all the time. But then they'd be in bed, and Chris would be pounding into him, and Justin would let him do it, with his flushed, open mouth dragging roughly across the sheets and Justin would say _slower, Chris, please, slower_ and Chris always found that he couldn't do it.

But Justin never complained after, and when he kissed Chris, the insides of his mouth tasted raw.

...

Chris found out, later, why Justin was like that.

...

He never meant to do it. It was just, JC was there, waking up from a nap on the sofa, and his hair was touchable and rumpled and his clothes smelled overwhelmingly _JC_ and he was just the slightest bit damp, and Chris had no choice but to let JC pull his head down and kiss him.

"Yes," JC breathed, tasting like grapes and, incongruously, plastic. His fingers curled and uncurled against the nape of Chris' neck, and Chris reached out to touch, trailing his fingers wondrously over JC's collarbones, his throat, his jaw.

"All right," Chris said finally, closing his eyes. He was surprised at how little it hurt.

...

Justin was small, Chris realized with some alarm. Justin wasn't supposed to be small, not anymore, not since he grew tall and grew toned and grew into a man. Baby Justin meant lots of curls and lots of loud and lots of...not this.

But as he stood over his bed, looking down at Justin, _small_ was the only word he could think of, and Chris nearly choked on the ambushing wave of overwhelming pity he felt for the boy--_still a boy_\--curled up under the covers. He sat, heavily, knowing that Justin would wake up. They needed to talk anyway.

"Chris...?" Justin's voice caught unevenly in his throat as he turned over, blinking awake.

"Justin," Chris started, then couldn't go on. He breathed in deeply and felt Justin sit up, pressing against his back, pressing small, urgent kisses along his spine.

"_Chris_," Justin whispered, his hands spidering along Chris' face, palms cupped warm over Chris' ears. _He knows_, Chris thought dully as he turned, sliding one arm around Justin's waist.

They do it one more time, Chris finally finding it in him to go slow because that's the least he can do, the very _least_ he can do, and when his body is flush against Justin's, he finds those dark blue eyes unwavering as they map his face. "I've always known," Justin says, his voice clear and precise. He sounds like he's confessing.

...

JC is beautiful, and he's sweet and strong and puts up with Chris and refuses to put up with Chris. He's perfect, and Chris has never been happier.

Some nights when they eat out, Chris orders his steak rare, because he knows he doesn't have much time.


End file.
